Great gifts for the one you love at LACMA

Looking for a special gift for the object of your affection? Want something out of the ordinary with an artful atmosphere that says Los Angeles and helps a wonderful institute? How about gifts from the Los Angeles Museum of Art?

Here’s some selections from the LACMA gift store, most can be bought online.

Love Forever: Yayoi Kusama 1958-1968 takes a comprehensive look at the defining decade of an artist whose recent rediscovery has been one of the great surprises in contemporary art. Accompanying a major retrospective organized by LACMA and the Japan Foundation in collaboration with the Museum of Modern Art, New York, it promotes a complete exhibition history for the artwork Kusama created during those innovative years.

Despite the fact that Kusama exhibited widely in the 1960s, her voluntary entry into a Tokyo psychiatric institution in 1977 furthered the artist’s increasing invisibility in this country, yet the influence of her quirky sensibility on contemporary art is now recognized as extraordinary. This book, containing examples of her paintings, sculptures, collages, and precedent-setting installations, also provides scholarly assessments by international art critics.

Our Tsukioka Yoshitoshi ‘Woman with Battledore’ kerchief can be a neck wrap, a package wrap or a kerchief – you decide! This multi-use textile is soft to the touch and allows you to see wonderful line work – particularly of hands and textures. This is adapted from a sketch attributed to Yoshitoshi, Sketch of a Woman with a Battledore from the 19th century that would have been used to create a woodblock print. Battledore is a game similar to badminton.

LACMA’s permanent collection includes over 400 additional works by Tsukioka Yoshitoshi (Japan, 1839-1892) including this drawing. Learn more about LACMA’s exhibition Samurai: Japanese Armor from the Ann and Gabriel Barbier-Mueller Collection.

This limited-edition print by Alexis Smith, Lust Rust Dust, 2004 was commissioned by the Prints and Drawings Council of LACMA.

Lust Rust Dust grew out of a collaboration between artist Alexis Smith and master printer Jeff Wasserman, and is based on a wall painting of the same title by Smith at the Japanese Museum in downtown Los Angeles. In both the painting and print, the words “lust,” “rust,” and “dust” have been set in a stacked formation and colored in red and blue to mimic Robert Indiana’s famous “LOVE” painting of the 1960s.

Established in 1965, The Prints and Drawings Council (PDC) supports the Prints and Drawings Department at LACMA. In addition to raising funds for acquisitions for the museum’s permanent collection, the PDC encourages collecting, scholarship, and appreciation in the field of original works of art on paper. PDC members receive many benefits, including greater discounts on the PDC commissioned prints when purchased through the council. Learn more on how to become a member of the Prints and Drawings Council.

Lush Japanese peonies decorate the top of this beautiful lacquer box with pale green sides. The black lacquer interior is lined top and bottom with fabric so it is perfect for bracelets, bangles and beads.

In Japanese art, it is important to express the inner essence of flowers as it is to convey their natural outward beauty. The peonies reproduced on this lacquer box are from a painting on silk in Pictures of Flowers and Birds, a nineteenth century album by Okamoto Shūki (Japan, 1807–1862). LACMA’s permanent collection includes this album and three additional works by this artist.

What could be sweeter than a hand-made heart? This garland of hearts by L.A. based dosa will add sparkle to a window and scatter bits of color from the beads between the hearts across a room.

These were inspired by milagros (miracles) found at the Basilica de la Soledad in Oaxaca, Mexico. The milagro project began as a means of providing employment for local women in Yjutlan, near Oaxaca who hand-stitch and bead them. Fabric remnants are recycled from other work to create these small wonders.

LACMA’s collections include almost 90 examples of Spanish Colonial art. Milagros, “miracles,” are religious folk charms that can be offered to a saint when a miracle is needed, or in thanks for one that has happened.

– Each garland contains 24 hand-made hearts, each heart is unique
– Overall garland length approximately 63 inches
– Hearts range from approximately 1 inches long to 1-3/4 inches in length
– Comes on a thin cord with beads suitable for hanging
– Not suitable for children under 5 years of age
SKU #26064

Made of durable enamel metal ware, this mug’s design of knife, heart and horse shoe spells out ‘I Love You” in pictographs. The inspiration for this comes from the image-only Toilet Paper magazine created by Maurizio Cattelan and Pierpaolo Ferrari. In the bi-annual publication’s pages, they can play with surrealism as they create each illustration from scratch.
Maurizio Cattelan, considered a trickster of the artworld, has two works of art in LACMA’s permanent collection. The horse is a reoccurring theme in Cattelan’s work.

This Pretty Posies bowl has white flowers ringing the top and flowing into a lovely pink faience glaze. Its design is inspired by the natural world and the Arts & Crafts style. Because these are hand-glazed, there is color variation between each of the vases.

Arts & Crafts vases are part of LACMA’s permanent collection, and LACMA has the largest collection of American Arts & Crafts decorative objects in the world.

– Glazed ceramic
– Approximately 3.75 x 5.5 inches
Made in the United States

Beauty can be consoling, disturbing, sacred, profane; it can be exhilarating, appealing, inspiring, chilling. It can affect us in an unlimited variety of ways. Yet it is never viewed with indifference. In thisVery Short Introduction, the renowned philosopher Roger Scruton explores the concept of beauty, asking what makes an object–either in art, in nature, or the human form–beautiful, and examining how we can compare differing judgments of beauty when it is evident all around us that our tastes vary so widely. Is there a right judgment to be made about beauty? Is it right to say there is more beauty in a classical temple than a concrete office block, more in a Rembrandt than in an Andy Warhol Campbell Soup Can? Forthright and thought-provoking, and as accessible as it is intellectually rigorous, this introduction to the philosophy of beauty draws conclusions that some may find controversial, but, as Scruton shows, help us to find greater sense of meaning in the beautiful objects around us.

Red-crowned cranes usually mate for life and are symbols of love, longevity and peace in Japan, making this Crane lacquer box the perfect gift for weddings and anniversaries.The top of the box reproduces a detail from Maruyama Ōkyo’s set of magnificent screens found in LACMA’s permanent collection. Black lacquer sides set off the beautiful top and the interior is lined top and bottom with soft fabric.

Cranes are some of the most majestic and endangered birds in the world and one of the rarest is the red-crowned crane (Grus japonensis) which stands almost 5 feet tall. Artist Maruyama Ōkyo may have chosen to depict this crane with a white-naped crane (Grus vipio), distinguished by its grey body and pink legs, because they often nest near each other.

This doggie pull toy was designed by Japanese artist Yoshitomo Nara. Its head and tail bounce as it is pulled – lots of fun for little ones.

– 10-1/2 inches long and almost 8 inches high
– Made in France
– Suitable for children 1+ years old

SKU #19757

Robert Mapplethorpe ‘Red Tulip’ Plate
$97.00 USD
Member Price
$87.30
Direct and forthright, this plate features Mapplethorpe’s photo Tulip (1988). French porcelain is the perfect surface for Mapplethorpe’s sublime images.

Robert Mapplethorpe was one of the top twentieth century photographers. His delicate flower still lifes and statuesque nudes show his interest in and emphasis on classical beauty.

Mapplethorpe’s archives, consisting of over 2,000 of his most famous photographs, were jointly acquired by LACMA and the J. Paul Getty Trust in 2011. The two museums have mounted joint exhibitions on Mapplethorpe’s works: Robert Mapplethorpe: XYZ at LACMA and In Focus: Robert Mapplethorpe at the Getty.

The artwork of Louise Bourgeois is seen on this Red Dots bone china plate inspired by her piece Ode À L’Oubli, 2004.

Louise Bourgeois grew up surrounded by the textiles from her parents’ tapestry restoration workshop, and helped them by drawing in the sections of the missing parts that were to be repaired. Her work was seen in In Wonderland: The Surrealist Adventures of Women Artists in Mexico and the United States, organized by LACMA.

Papel Picado Red Hearts Paper Banner
$11.00 USD
Member Price
$9.90
Papel picado is a traditional Mexican folk art, and this banner, with red tissue paper flags, celebrates special occasions with birds, cupids and hearts. It has 10 flags of several different designs, each was created by hand cutting tissue paper with chisels, then stringing the flags together on a thin cord. The designs of papel picado have influenced artists whose work in turn has influenced papel picado patterns.

Pierre Huyghe
On view through February 22, 2015
Nature and the American Vision: The Hudson River School
On view through June 7, 2015
Tickets are available anytime online, during regular museum hours at a LACMA Ticket Office, or by calling 323 857-6010.

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Published by Jana J. Monji

I've written for the Rafu Shimpo, LA Weekly, LA Times, Examiner.com and, more recently, the Pasadena Weekly and RogerEbert.com. I formerly worked for a dot-com more interested in yodeling than its customers.
View all posts by Jana J. Monji

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